TPT Store Open!

Hello! 

I am so excited! I've been wanting to sell on TPT for a long time now and I finally finished a document that I am proud to sell! It is random...but it is something I needed myself for an upcoming unit and had a hard time finding. So maybe other teachers need it too! Here it is...

Also, here is a random freebie because why not?

Thats all! Thanks for stopping by!

Miss KindergarDunn

Voice Memos: Making Life Easier

Quick post tonight. I wanted to share two ways I began to utilize voice memos in my class. These are super simple, but so far they have been really helpful. Any Kindergarten teacher will probably agree that we tend to have to repeat things a lot. Instructions, tying shoes, putting on band-aids, etc.. One question I noticed I would get a million (no exaggeration) times every morning was "What's for lunch?" Of course, the kiddos don't all walk in at the same time so I found myself repeating the menu over and over and over. Now, I love talking to my kiddos in the morning but I would much rather use my time to see how they are doing and simply chat as opposed to repeating food items like a robot. That brings me to the first way I now use voice memos on my iPad. Before the kiddos get to school, I record myself saying what lunch is that day and leave the app open next to our lunch count. Students know to come in and press the play button as opposed to asking me. They got quite the kick out of this the first few times, but now it has become a part of daily routine. Saving my voice, one play button at a time.

Another way I now use the voice memo app is during math centers. Most weeks one of my centers is "Math Journals" where students complete story problems. In the past, I would have a parent helper (if available) or myself read the number story out loud for the group. I would often have to repeat it numerous times for students to remember the different parts ("Wait Miss Dunn, was it two blue cubes and three red? Or three blue and two red?") Now, I record the number story before math groups begin and set it out for students to hit play on their own as many times as they need to remember the details. Wala!

Two simple, easy ways to use voice memos to make the life of a Kindergarten teacher just a tad bit easier. Less time repeating myself = more time for meaningful conversation and teaching. 

New Years Resolution + Some Tech Stuff

I have different categories of resolutions for myself this year, both for my personal life and for my career. Blogging, at least once a week, is a resolution I have for my career. I think my biggest fault when I started this blog was that I wanted to start BIG. I wanted this blog to immediately have lots of posts and freebies and followers...but I didn't really know how to make that happen. When I couldn't make it big right away, I decided to quit entirely (hence why my last post was in July). I used the excuse that I was "too busy to blog" when the reality was that I didn't know how to start and I didn't want to start unless it was perfect. What I learned is that 1. My blog will not look like those other amazing teacher blogs right away and 2. My blog will never look like those other amazing teacher blogs if I never write any posts. You have to start somewhere...am I right? Am I right?! Right...well that's that. So I'm going to start small.

I'd like to share something that I am doing in my classroom that I would have never guessed I would be doing with Kindergarteners if you had told me 2 or 3 years ago. Every day my Kindergarten students are blogging and tweeting! Kindergarteners using Twitter?! Absolutely! Our school is all about creating digital citizens and I think it's awesome! Anymore, social media is used as an outlet for people to brag, complain, share meaningless information (I just went to the store #groceries), etc. By tweeting and blogging in Kindergarten we are teaching students how to use social media to connect, collaborate, share, learn, create, respect, and enjoy engaging in meaningful conversation. 

What I love most about using Twitter and Kidblog is students love it! It creates an authentic audience. Each day (I'll admit we aren't great about remembering this every day) we have three "tweeters" who get to share something they have learned or done in class. We've had students tweet things like "I'm excited for math today" in which parents who follow our class have responded moments later, "I'm so proud of you! Keep up the hard work!" The smile on a 5 year olds face when I read their parent's response from home is PRICELESS. Other students have shared something they learned, such as "Yesterday we learned that the Navy protect us from the sea." (during Veteran's Day). It is so wonderful for students to be able to share these things with a wide audience (mainly parents and other classrooms around the world). 

Students pictures are put on those black squares via velcro. Students use dry-erase marker to write their "tweet" on the laminated white sentence strips next to their picture.  I then tweet it on one of our class iPads to our class twitter account (@kindergardunn). This way all students can see the tweets that students write in our classroom.

Kidblog is something else we use in class each and every day. Students are able to rotate to our classroom computers during our Daily 5 (which is actually more like Daily 7 in our class - we added iPads and Computers to the original 5) every day. Each week, students blog about different topics. As winter started, students blogged about hot chocolate or what they like to do in the snow. I use the bulletin board you can see in the picture to tack up the topic for the week and sometimes some words that will help them get started. Higher level students and/or students who are computer-savvy comment on other student's post and create posts of their own. We have also used our classroom iPads to create posts with pictures. For example, we once created story problems using math manipulatives, took a picture, and created a post showing the number story and a number sentence to go with it. See picture below. 

Student uses iPad to take a picture of his number story to add to his blog.

Kidblog and Twitter are just two ways we use technology in our class every day. If you are skeptical about starting this in your class, have questions, comments, or suggestions for me to become better please comment below! I know there are so many tech-savvy teachers out there using technology is such cool ways to enhance learning. Can't wait to learn more and keep growing each year. Thanks!

-Miss KindergarDunn

FREEBIES COMING SOON

Soon I will be posting my first FREEBIES on TpT and on this blog! I am working on a Daily 5 Kit and and CAFE Assessment Notebook! I'm making them for my own Kindergarten class so that they are efficient and cute so I hope others can benefit from them as well. I'll post the link here when I am finished.


I don't know if I am required to put this, but...

*Cafe is trademarked by the two sisters who do not endorse or promote this product! Please read their books if you are interested in implementing this program into your classroom. www.the2sisters.com

-Miss KindergarDunn

The Daily 5 and CAFE "Review"

Hi Hi Hi

Whew! I just finished reading The Daily 5 and The CAFE book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I originally searched high and low for The Daily 5 and eventually ordered it online. I don't know that I've ever been excited to receive a book in the mail before...so that was a first for me. The book came Friday afternoon and I was finished with it by Friday evening. It's a very easy read...plus I just used my comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanding vocabulary skills to get it done quickly (ha, classic CAFE joke...you wouldn't get it unless you read the book...okay, maybe you would)

If you don't know anything at all about these two books this post wont make sense and isn't worth reading. I don't intend to go into much detail becuase honestly, if you are interested in implementing this into your classroom, you must read the books. I knew next to nothing about The Daily 5 or CAFE on Friday afternoon, and now I feel fully capable and confident that I can begin pre-planning for this management system in my classroom tomorrow.

What I do want to do is highlight a few quotes and things that I found interesting in each of the books. These were things that made me say, "aha" or "ooo" or "exactly!" or "haha."

The Daily 5:

"...stay out of the way and let them read." (p25) This quote is referring to once you have established routine and built stamina. I've always thought an excellent teacher is one that is always circulating the room, but this makes so much sense to give them a chance to monitor themselves and be accountable for their own progress. "aha"

The Good Fit Book lesson idea with the shoes...doing this. I love it. (p30-31)

Another idea that is great for a beginning teacher like myself who does not have enough books for each child to have 3-8 in their own book box: utilize the local library. I looked it up and our local library allows you to check out 100 items at a time... :O Of course, you need to be careful to keep track of where all of those books are but that will be so helpful for launching the Daily 5! (p34)

"Memory stored in the kinesthetic system evokes the longest memory." (p36)

Signals for transitions - use something that is "different enough to grab the attention of our highly kinesthetic children, but not obtrusive enough to upset our auditory children" (p39)  They suggest something like chimes...hmmm I need to find something for this.

Correct/Incorrect model - Using a student that you know thrives on attention. Having them be goofy doing the incorrect model and then model the correct way. That student comes to realize they get just as much attention doing it the correct way. Plus, the know that you know they can do it. Two birds - one Stone.

The CAFE Book:

"Flexible Grouping" means based on strategies individual students need to work on at a given time. NOT reading levels. I used to think that flexible grouping just meant leveled groups that students could move up and down in. WRONGO! It makes much more sense now. In hindsight, I would have answered an interview question differently when they asked me to elaborate on "flexible groups." Turns out I didn't know what I was talking about.

"The more whole-class teaching offered, the lower the academic achievement in any school." (p10)

"The approximate age of the students is the approximate number of minutes they can sustain higher-level thinking with group instruction." (p115)

IN CONCLUSION:

I will tell you, I have never been more excited to try something new in the world of teaching.  If you're reading this and you already use Daily 5/CAFE I'd love to hear about how your experience is so far or any advice you have! I'm new to the teacher blogging world so any responses from fellow teacher bloggers pretty much makes my day. :)


Miss KindergarDunn

Hot Summer Reads (for teachers)

One thing I regret about my educational training thus far is that I have not read any education (methods/strategies/etc.) books out of my own intrinsic motivation (that's right, using teacher words here). Now, obviously there were books that I "read" for class, but if I'm going to be honest, most were outdated and/or didn't seem relevant at the time.

During student teaching, my supervising teacher recommended a book called Weakfish: Bullying Through the Eyes of a Child by Michael Dorn. I'll admit, at first I wasn't keen on the idea of reading a somewhat educational book outside of school. However, I was certainly glad I did. I really enjoyed this book as a pleasure read and it also taught me a lot about the impact school personnel can have on bullying. What do ya know!? I enjoyed it and I learned from it! Since then and since I have an official job, I find that I want to read more and more so that I can be a database of educational knowledge. Okay...I may have gone a little far there. But, I am feeling inspired.

Moral of the story is...today I hit up Barnes and Noble for some books to read during these last few weeks of summer. Here is what I found:

The Essential 55: An Award Winning Educator's Rules for Discovering The Successful Student in Every Child by Ron Clark

Before I went out to buy books, I "researched" what I should look for. I saw Ron Clark's name on several outstanding teacher blogs so I figure this will be a great book. The book highlights 55 specific rules to use in your classroom. Looking forward to finding out what Ron Clark is all about in this book. Also, I bought a Workbook that goes along with it. Gave myself a little homework. :)

Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov

This was a book that was recommended to me by a fellow teacher friend. I began reading this today and like it so far. Though, I'm only on page 10...so I have a ways to go before I can make judgments. The book highlights 49 techniques to use in your classroom. What I really like about this is that he discusses techniques, not methods or theories. It's actual actions you can practice in your classroom right away. I definitely want to finish this book before summer is over. Stay tuned for a review in a week or so.

The Daily 5 and The Cafe Book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser (The 2 Sisters)

I think I am  most excited about these two books. I've heard so much about the Daily 5 and have a little background knowledge on it, but I want to know more! I really want to incorporate this into my classroom this year so I know these two books will be essential for me. I'll share more once I read them!

So, if you are looking for some hot summer reads for your professional growth as a teacher, I would recommend you get out and look around because there is a lot of good stuff out there. Once I finish reading all of these books I'll let ya know my thoughts! Likewise, if you have read any of these books or other great books please let me know!!! Thanks for tuning in!

-Miss KindergarDunn

FINALLY

After 18 years of knowing I want to be a teacher and 4 years at Purdue University training to become one, THE TIME HAS COME! Beginning in August...(drum roll please)...I will finally and officially be a Kindergarten teacher. I will finally...(another drumroll please)...have my VERY OWN CLASSROOM!

Wait.

What do I do now!?!

My whole life I have prepared for this but now that it is real, I am realizing I have so much to do. So, naturally one of the first things I do is create this blog so I can procrastinate doing the things I need to do by talking about the things I need to do...

I have completed one thing on my "To-Do" list and that is choosing a theme for my classroom this year. I debated several themes, taking into consideration the overall feel I want my classroom to have. I finally decided to go with a "Community" theme. Of course, I am not the first teacher to think of this, so I searched around for materials and ideas. One of the first I found was this community themed classroom decor kit from All Things Apple in 2nd Grade. Thank you Nicole Swisher for this awesome starter kit my classroom! Everything in it is adorable and perfect for a community theme. 

Click the picture to access the kit on TpT. It is so worth the money if you are doing a community themed classroom. Once I get into my room and begin decorating/organizing/etc. I will post pictures of how I work this theme into my classroom. Can't wait to share more! Thanks for reading!

-Miss KindergarDunn